


Pulp

by VerityR



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 12:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13031016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerityR/pseuds/VerityR
Summary: Since Crait, Rey had done her best to quash the bond. Usually, she was successful. But on days like today, when she'd trained until her limbs were jelly and her head was pounding, Rey didn't have enough left over to keep him at bay.(Or, Kylo pops in for a chat. Things go about as well as could be expected.)





	Pulp

“You know,” Kylo said, congenially, perched in a corner of her room like he belonged there, “We _used_ to talk.”  


A second before, Rey had been tired, a little bit hungry, but mostly content. In an instant, she was on guard. Her gaze was trained firmly downward. Her shoulders retreated somewhere in the vicinity of her ears.  


_Ignore him. Ignore him._  


"And you hated me more, then." 

Easier said than done, of course, ignoring a person who was in your mind.  


_Ignore him less actively,_ she resolved. Rey palmed a fruit she’d stashed in the little cubby under her cot, dug a thumb into its thick skin. The acid bit at her cuticle, torn and open.  


“They say,” he pressed on, sardonic, unruffled, “when the conversation goes— ”  


“I don’t have anything to say to you.”  


“Really?” Kylo raised an eyebrow. Rey turned her attention back to the fruit she’d been peeling. Not the most scintillating distraction, but any port in a storm. “No interest in a little diplomacy?”  


“I didn’t think despots went in much for diplomacy,” she said, coolly.  


“Supreme Leader,” Kylo corrected, baring his teeth in a grin.  


“I must’ve missed the coronation.”  


“If it makes you feel better,” he said, ducking his head, hair in his eyes. “You were there for the fun part.”  


Since Crait, Rey had done her best to quash the bond. Usually, she was successful. But on days like today, when she'd trained until her limbs were jelly and her head was pounding, Rey didn't have enough left over to keep him at bay. 

Rey found she preferred Kylo at his worst. Pompous and snide, he was easy enough to handle. His jabs were more pointed, but the deflection behind them was more obvious. It was the moments of vulnerability she despised. _Monsters are easy. But the men that play at being them..._  


"Could be the other way around," Kylo offered, apropos of nothing.

"What?"

"Maybe I'm a monster playing at being a man."

_Get. Out. Of. My. Head._

"Not really how this works. Which I think you know by now." 

“Look, whatever you came here to say— ”  


“I didn't _come_ anywhere.” Kylo sat next to her on her cot, ran a thumb over the stitching on the quilt. “Really, it's like you don't put any thought into this at all.”  


Rey scowled and bit into the fruit.  


“There’s _here,_ ” He looked up and squinted. It was sunny, wherever he was. “And _there,_ ” He gestured to her surroundings. “But you and I are in the same place.”  


“For someone who hates the Jedi, your vague explanations bear a striking resemblance.”  


“Don’t act like you're incapable of abstract thought. I know you.”  


“As you’re _so_ fond of reminding me. You’d think your manipulation would be more effective. You knowing me so well, and all.”  


He was ignoring her, now. It was about as convincing as when she’d tried it. He took a piece of the fruit from her lap, his wrist brushing against her thigh.  


“Is this your way of showing off?”  


Kylo shrugged. He swallowed. “Just hungry.”  


“How did you... I didn't know that was possible,” Rey admitted, regretting the words as soon as she’d said them. It seemed important, somehow, this new wrinkle in their bond. But mentioning it could only encourage him. 

His mouth twisted into a grim line. Somehow, Rey didn’t think it was the fruit.

“Nothing about us is possible.”

For once, it didn’t sound like a lead-in to a grand speech about the systems they could conquer, the planets they could rule. So she let it lie, taking another piece of fruit herself.  


Ripping into the sour flesh with her teeth, Rey started thinking. If he had seen her surroundings well enough to reach through and take something, she should at least be able to take a look _around._  


Rey reached out gingerly, picturing herself stealthy, on the balls of her feet. It felt silly, but like anything else Force-related, Rey went with her instincts and worked backwards from there. Not that it mattered; Kylo was too preoccupied trying to seem impassive to pay much attention to her side of things.  


There was sun, she’d known that already. On his side, Kylo was sitting on a rock, not a bed. Red rock. Underfoot, she felt the familiar give of sand. Rey turned her head. The sand kept going. A desert. _Jakku?_  


The question rose to the front of her mind, unbidden. Kylo’s eyes were on her in an instance, and she could only glean a fading glimpse of the horizon before he closed himself off. Blinking back into the dimness of her room, Rey realized the afterimage the sun had left in her eyes was strangely shaped. Almost like a BB unit.  


He was still looking at her.  


“What?” Rey snapped, rising from her bed. “Privacy feeling invaded? Must be a nightmare.”  


“Didn’t know you were so territorial about your fruit,” he snarked, without much fire.  


“You know us poor, unloved children. Very cagey about our next meal, can’t imagine why.”  


A muscle in his jaw jumped. “That isn’t how _I_ — ”  


“Yes, yes, you’re the only one who _sees_ me. Who could _care_ about a wretched thing like me. I’ve heard this line before, you know. Want to try another?”  


“If you didn’t need me, you’d do a better job ignoring me.”  


“Interesting theory. But it seems to me,” Rey said, leaning to pick up the half-eaten fruit. “You’re the one in _my_ head.”  


She pitched the fruit at his chest. He caught it.  


“I could leave this room right now,” she went on, “and find a dozen people who want to talk to me. Who _care_ about me. Your mother, for one. She doesn’t seem to object to the presence of a scavenger from a junk planet in her strategy meetings.”  


He was crushing the fruit in his hand. It wasn’t clear if he’d meant to, but pulp and juice were running rivulets through his fingers either way.  


“So who needs who? Who do _you_ have, Kylo, out there in— ”  


Rey blinked again, the image still burned into her eyes. Two suns. A desert planet with two suns.  


“You’re on Tatooine?”  


Kylo looked up, squinting at suns she couldn’t see.  


“That's new.” He met her gaze, half-smiling. "Or maybe I hadn't noticed."  


The question was on her tongue, but he didn't bother waiting for her to ask it.

"You don't call me Ben anymore."

Before Rey could offer up a rejoinder, he was gone. She let out a breath. Her muscles unspooled.  


It was only later, once she was hungry again, that Rey realized the fruit had gone with him. Most of it, anyway. The guts that had dripped from his fist remained on the ground, a pale, sticky puddle.

**Author's Note:**

> I may be breaking my own record for fastest fic turnaround here. There's just something about a force bond, am I right?


End file.
